Imran's Kifli.net

Tiger Woods

This came to me as no surprise. It’s the right thing to do. It was all over the news. Accenture staff even received an email notification to inform them of this. Speculation on online media has stated that his average loss in sponsorships could be as much as US$50million per scandal! Looking at the number of women that has come forward, that’s easily US$500 million down the drain! Below is an excerpt from MSN News:

A major sponsor of Tiger Woods announced Sunday it was ending its six-year ties with the golf star, saying he “is no longer the right representative” after a blistering sex scandal.

The billionaire athlete and married father of two, once a ubiquitous figure with priceless advertising value, has seen his squeaky clean image decimated by a string of affairs with a porn star, cocktail waitress and other women, raising concerns of sponsors pulling away from golf.

“For the past six years, Accenture and Tiger Woods have had a very successful sponsorship arrangement and his achievements on the golf course have been a powerful metaphor for business success in Accenture’s advertising,” the Dublin-based technology, management and outsourcing consultancy said in a statement.

“However, given the circumstances of the last two weeks, after careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising. Accenture said that it wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.”

The statement marked the end of a relationship with the 14-time major champion at the center of ad campaigns that once included slogans like “Go on. Be a Tiger,” or “We know what it takes to be a Tiger.”

The company’s website once read: “Famous not only for his success on the golf course, Tiger Woods is equally renowned for his work ethic, focus and commitment to continual improvement.”

Accenture, which had earlier removed an image of Woods from its website, said it would “immediately” transition to a new advertising campaign, with plans for a “major” effort to launch next year.

But it was only the latest in a series of companies to reevaluate their sponsorship of the world’s top golfer ever since Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade SUV into a tree and fire hydrant just outside his home in bizarre circumstances on November 27, unleashing a media firestorm.

Razormaker Gillette announced Saturday it would phase him out of advertisements while he takes a break from golf, calling it a supportive move.

“As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programs,” the company said, said without announcing a timetable for the resumption of use of the golfer’s image.

One major concern from the golf world is that with Tiger taking “indefinite” leave from golf to fix his problems, this would be a major blow to the golf industry. Viewership has plummet during the 6-ish months when he was on leave for his knee injury, and now with this scandal and him not playing for a few months, the popularity of golf might just drop to the point it being a “rich old man’s game”. Even though it might take a while for that to actually happen (months or years, in fact), unless Tiger picks up his club sooner, he might just sink the whole industry with him.

I know this piece of news was from last year, but I am exicited to see their progress and get highspeed broadband in Malaysia. I am guessing that TM needs to roll this out as soon as possible with the advent of wimax that is being aggressively promoted and provided by P1.

KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd has received a letter of award from the Government to implement the RM11.31bil high-speed broadband (HSBB) project.

TM said on Tuesday the project would be carried out in collaboration with the Government to deploy the access, domestic core and international networks to deliver an end-to-end HSBB infrastructure.

“The total cost of the HSBB investment for a period of 10 years is RM11.31bil whereby the Government will be investing RM2.4bil and the remaining RM8.91bil from TM,” it said.

TM said with the acceptance of the letter of award, the company and the Government would sign a formal agreement based on mutually agreed terms and conditions in due course.

It added that more details and relevant information would be announced when the HSBB agreement was signed.

On May 15, TM said it was pleased to learn the Government has approved the pertinent details and broad implementation strategies for the HSBB roll-out plan.

The plan was a key initiative in the effort to widen broadband penetration in the country. The HSBB coverage is expected to be available across 1.3 million premises.

News item from: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/2/business/20080902181752&sec=business

 Accenture Ltd. plans to shed 7% of its senior-executive ranks, or about 336 positions, and plans to cut excess real estate capacity, seeing total restructuring charges of $247 million in its fiscal fourth quarter.

The technology outsourcing and management company said about $128 million of the charge was for severance and related costs of work force reductions at the senior-executive level. Prior to the cut, the company had 4,800 senior-executive employees. It had a total of 177,000 employees, according to a company spokesman.

Accenture already laid off half of its work force in the Philippines in March. So far, a hope that the global recession could spur demand for companies like Accenture, which provide consulting and technology services to corporations, has failed to materialize.

The rest of the charges were attributed to cutting excess office space. The company sees the restructuring charges lowering the fourth quarter and full-year results by 24 cents. The periods end Aug. 31.

“We’re taking proactive steps to ensure that we have the right cost structure to support our business going forward and that our organization is properly aligned to most effectively capture future growth opportunities,” said Chairman and Chief Executive William D. Green.

The company expects the space reductions to be completed at the end of the fiscal year. The work force cuts should be substantially completed during the fiscal first quarter of 2010.

Accenture also maintained its revenue target and its operating margin, absent the impact of the restructuring charge.

The article above was written by John Kell and published at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125080162578047511.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

After my last 10KM event, I was very enthusiastic in participating in another run, so I quickly registered for another 10KM event, which is the Siemens Run 2009. The Siemens Run main event is the 10KM run (there’s no Full Marathon or Half Marathon). Despite it being the main event, the number of participants is almost half of the 10KM event at the KL Marathon. The registration count for the Siemens Run is about 3000, and the the KL Marathon was 5500+. Later I was told that they have a maximum participant number, which is a good thing or else the route is going to be packed like sardines.

As shown below, the route started at Dataran Merdeka with a tour through Bukit Tunku before going down to Jalan Parlimen and back to where it started. The interesting part are the slopes at Bukit Tunku as it really eats up your energy. I’m guessing that’s where everybody started to drain out as right after the Bukit Tunku exit there’s a water stop and everybody was more than happy to grab a cup.

I finished the race just under 1 hour 11 minutes, a 7 minute improvement from my previous 10KM. With this new spirit, I look forward to the next 10KM event. Hopefully next event I would be able to break the 1 hour barrier.

Greetings. I would like to share my experience in the recent KL Marathon where I ran the 10KM event. The KL Marathon is considered one of the major annual running events in KL and this year it is organised by Standard Chartered. It was my first official long distance run since highschool, which is a good 9 years ago. Over the past 2 years I’ve been doing some casual running at the nearby park, hence I decided to test myself by entering the 10KM run.

The 10KM event turned out good for me. I ran the whole 10KM and qualified (the qualification time is 1 hour 30 mins) . At the finish line, my time was 1 hour 18 mins. I believe this is quite the achievement as this is my first long distance event in years. Now I’m loooking forward to the next 10KM events around KL!

On the other hand I heard there were a lot of complaints with the other events (half marathon and 5KM event), where the officials on duty were not able to control the crowd and the people running the 5KM run made a wrong turn and ended up running 2.5KM. I can understand their dissapointment. Below is a picture of me and my brother. Both of us qualified.

Background of Sub-prime

The sub-prime meltdown which began in August 2007 has brought down several of the long established and large financial establishments in the US and Europe. Major banks and other financial institutions around the world have reported losses of approximately US$540 billion as of September 2008, and this has continued to increase. Despite concerted efforts by governments and central banks worldwide to cut interest rates and inject massive liquidity into the stock market and the banking system, the global crisis has yet to show any sign of abating. Countries are already experiencing recession while the more resilient economies are revising their economic growth downwards.

Cause and effect

The sub-prime crisis was mainly due to collateralized loan obligations (CLO), collateralised debt obligations (CDO) and mortgaged-backed securities (MBS) which were bundled and repackaged and combined with swap and options (swaptions). They then led to the creation of the sub-prime loans when interest rates were low which then fuelled an artificial mortgage growth, leading to a property bubble. In some cases, the derivatives originated by the investment banks surprisingly found their way back into the originators’ books. Thus, this time round, the investment banks themselves became victims of their own doings. In the early months preceding the crisis, proponents of Islamic finance were quick to point out that the crisis would not affect Islamic banks because Islamic finance transactions are asset based and shuns gharar – excessive risk or lack of transparency. Critics on the other hand say that the reason is simply because Islamic finance has not achieved the level of sophistication of the conventional finance and therefore, not exposed to derivatives.

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Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Thailand plans to raise $600 million from its first sale of Islamic bonds as it seeks to attract funds from the Middle East to pay for public works.

“We want to tap petrodollars as Middle East countries have lots of money,” Dheerasak Suwannayos, president of the state- owned Islamic Bank of Thailand, told reporters in Bangkok today.

Islamic Bank plans to sell seven-year Islamic bonds in the third quarter of 2009, Suwannayos said. State companies will use money raised from the securities, known as sukuk, to help finance their projects.

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KUALA LUMPUR: The sukuk (Islamic bond) market has felt the impact of the deteriorating global credit conditions, according to a recent report by the Islamic Finance Information Service (IFIS).

In a statement, IFIS said the report, titled Sukuk in HI 2008: Key Trends and Highlights, indicated that issuance had fallen by 54% in the first half of 2008 (1H08) compared to 1H 2007. It said this was the first such drop since 2001, when the sukuk market started to take off.

In 1H08, the total number of sukuk issued was 61, compared with 111 in 1H07 and 77 in 1H06. In terms of value, 1H08 tallied US$11.55 billion (RM40.08 billion) compared with US$25 billion in 1H07 and US$13.67 billion in 1H06.

IFIS, owned by global publishing giant Euromomey Institutional Investor, said the impact of the credit crunch on Islamic markets had been severe, contrary to its own expectations at the end of 2007.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 (Bernama) — The sukuk market is picking up again and the issuance is expected to exceeed US$20 billion (US$1=RM3.43) this year, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services (S&P) said in a report.

The report, ‘Sukuk Market Continues To Grow Despite Gloomy Global Market Conditions’, said the appetite from issuers in a large number of countries — Muslim and Non-Muslim — was growing.

In a statement here today, S&P said entities located in more than 15 countries, predominately non-Muslim, had expressed interest or announced their intention to issue sukuks.

S&P credit analyst, Mohamed Damak, said more than 50 percent of sukuk issued in the first half of 2008 were “ijara” (lease financing), most probably as a direct consequence of the debate among some syariah scholars regarding the syariah-compliance of most sukuks previously issued.

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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Islamic financial institutions (FI) are strongly urged to set up offices abroad, especially in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to take a bigger slice of the oil money.

The oil windfall already has the new generation of Gulf leaders coming up with more investments and economic development plans to channel the excess liquidity.

“When it comes to infrastructure alone, there’s US$600 billion worth of project financing to be done in GCC for the next few years,” said Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) executive director of Islamic Finance, Nik Norishky Thani.

DIFC is one of the fastest-growing financial centres. A full-fledged onshore capital market, it offers participants 100% foreign ownership and zero tax on income and profits as part of its many financial incentives.

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